Sony on Monday revealed key details of its PlayStation 3 video-game console, saying that two million of the next-generation game machines would hit stores in Japan on November 11 and in the United States, Europe and Australia on November 17.
President George Bush announced on Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will address the United Nations Security Council, seeking a rapid deployment of peacekeepers to Sudan. Bush said Rice would address the Security Council on Tuesday, following last week’s peace agreement between the government and rebels.
When Oscar de la Hoya gets back to his adopted home in Puerto Rico, he’ll have plenty of lucrative choices to make about his revitalised career — whom to fight, when to fight and when to stop. But deciding to stay at home with his wife and son might be the bravest choice of all. De la Hoya got the boxing world buzzing on Saturday night after a 20-month absence from the ring.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday welcomed the landmark deal signed between the Khartoum government and the main rebel faction in Sudan’s Darfur region but urged the two other insurgent groups to sign as well. ”I welcomed the agreement and urged the other two parties to seize this historic moment and sign the agreement that will bring this tragic chapter in the history of Sudan to an end,” he told reporters.
About 694-million people worldwide over age 15 are now using the internet, about 14% of the total population in this age group, according to a survey released on Thursday. The report by research firm comScore Networks claims to be ”the first true estimate of global online audience size and behaviour” using consistent methodology.
Sex, betrayal and bloodshed were the order of a fateful day for the lost souls of Lost. With the season drawing to a close this month, Lost put several of its airline-crash castaways in the line of fire and proved it has not run out of plot twists. For those planning to watch the episode of the ABC drama later that aired on Wednesday in the United States, please do not read any further.
Non-diet sodas will be yanked from United States schools, and other drinks will be downsized under a deal announced by former president Bill Clinton and the nation’s largest beverage distributors. ”This is a truly bold step forward in the struggle to help 35-million young people lead healthier lives,” said Clinton.
Earl Woods, who inspired and moulded his son Eldrick into a golf legend, died on Wednesday at age 74, superstar child Tiger Woods and wife Kultida at his bedside just before cancer claimed his life. ”He was my best friend and greatest role model and I will miss him deeply,” Woods said in a Wednesday night posting on his website.
A new documentary film screened this week in Toronto about author Dan Brown’s hugely popular The Da Vinci Code reveals a widespread dissatisfaction with organised religion, the director told Agence France-Presse. ”This was a spiritual road trip, a search for meaning,” said Emmy award-winning veteran director Jonathan Stack at the packed screening of his film Secrets of the Code.
Counseling and a drug that blocks the brain’s pleasure receptors can effectively treat alcoholism without the expense of checking into specialised clinics, said a study released on Tuesday. ”Medical care works, and alcoholics don’t need to check into a specialty treatment programme to get it,” said Robert Swift, an author of the report.
A United States Congress-mandated commission called on the government to take "aggressive action" against Saudi Arabia for alleged religious-freedom violations and warned that religious rights were under threat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Three months after succeeding the famously discreet Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairperson Ben Bernanke has been dealt a painful lesson in the cost of careless talk. A private conversation involving the new Fed chief at Saturday’s annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association found its way out into public this week.
North Korea loses at least -million each week it stays away from multilateral talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons drive, a top United States negotiator said on Tuesday. North Korea stood to gain that amount of money in energy aid alone in return for abandoning its nuclear weapons under an agreement reached by the negotiating parties.
The death row execution of an Ohio man was delayed briefly for one hour on Tuesday after he cried out as he lay on the lethal injection table, according to local media reports. The death row inmate was eventually executed after technicians adjusted an intravenous line.
United States President George Bush told Sudan’s president in ”very clear” terms that his government must redouble efforts to make a deal with rebels at peace talks, the White House said on Tuesday. In a phone call on Monday with President Omar al-Beshir, Bush urged the Sudanese leader to send his vice-president back to the peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria.
Restaurant chain TGI Friday’s has made a public apology after a customer found a piece of a finger in his food. The sliver of skin ended up being served with the hamburger and fries after a manager cut his finger while working in the kitchen of a Bloomington, Indiana restaurant last week.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that can be altered by anyone with a computer, has proved remarkably useful for pulling political dirty tricks. Political operatives are covertly rewriting — or defacing — candidates’ biographical entries to make the boss look good or the opponent look ridiculous.
Casting off an end-of-year lethargy, the United States economy bounded ahead in the opening quarter of this year at a 4,8% pace, the fastest pace of growth in two-and-a-half years. The increase in the gross domestic product marks a vast improvement from the feeble 1,7% annual rate registered in the final quarter of 2005.
United States computer software titan Microsoft reported on Thursday that third-quarter income rose 16,4% due to demand for its latest products. Net income for the quarter tallied ,89-billion, or 29 cents per share, as compared with ,3-billion for that quarter in 2005, according to Microsoft.
A senior United States politician assailed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday for calling Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema a ”good friend” despite criticism of his human rights record. Democratic Senator Carl Levin said Rice sent the message that the United States was more interested in oil than human rights.
Hollywood star George Clooney pleaded on Thursday for a more vigorous United States effort to end what he called ”the first genocide of the 21st century” in Sudan’s war-devastated Darfur region. The Oscar-winning actor and director urged broad participation at demonstrations to be held on Sunday in Washington, San Francisco and several other US cities.
The World Bank said on Thursday it has clinched an interim deal with Chad to unblock frozen oil revenues owed to the impoverished African country. The global lender said the Chadian government has promised to adopt a new Budget law that will reserve 70% of its oil proceeds for poverty reduction.
United States President George Bush on Wednesday introduced conservative talk-show host Tony Snow as his new chief spokesperson in the latest shake-up of the struggling White House. ”I’m confident that Tony Snow will make an outstanding addition to this White House team,” Bush said.
Three Hollywood labour unions have inked new contracts that will compensate actors, writers and directors and others involved in the ABC drama Lost for the broadcast of snippets of the show on cellphones. The deals guarantee union health and pension benefits and minimum payments, and could be a blueprint for similar agreements involving other TV content.
God has finally come to United States reality television — and against all guesses the oddball match has delighted the Roman Catholic Church. God or the Girl pits four aspiring young Catholic priests against their libidos during the final four weeks before their decisions to take the church’s Holy Orders, with the vow of chastity.
Having starved himself and been frozen in ice, United States magician David Blaine now plans to spend seven days submerged in a water-filled container in New York. The latest stunt by the renowned illusionist will seem him enter a 2.,m high acrylic sphere on May 1 and remain submerged for a week.
The crackdown on leaks at the Central Intelligence Agency that led to the dismissal of a veteran employee last week included an unusual lie detector test for CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Famed test pilot and aviation pioneer Scott Crossfield, the first man to travel at twice the speed of sound, died when his plane crashed in the American state of Georgia, the Civil Air Patrol said on Thursday. He was 84. Crossfield was flying from the southern state of Alabama to Virginia when his Cessna disappeared from radar.
So far in Enron founder Kenneth Lay’s fraud and conspiracy trial, a slew of prosecution witnesses have pointed the finger at him while a few — including his co-defendant, former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling — spoke up for him. On Monday, he aims to speak for himself.
Crude oil futures closed above a barrel in New York for the first time on Friday, amid increasing concerns about the Iranian nuclear crisis and a United States gasoline-supply crunch. The June contract for light sweet crude closed at ,17 a barrel after rising as high as ,35.
Skyrocketing energy prices will figure prominently on the agenda of the world’s seven largest economic powers when they gather on Friday. Discussions on worldwide economic matters will carry over into the weekend meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
A five-cent slot machine in Atlantic City disgorged a -million windfall for an 84-year-old United States grandmother who promptly received four marriage proposals, according to reports on Thursday. Josephine Crawford had lost in the machine and was down to the last of her modest stake-money when she hit the jackpot on Tuesday evening at Harrah’s casino in the New Jersey gambling hotspot.